The decision to award Malala Yousafzai the Nobel Peace Prize last week was a good one. After all, the 17 year-old, who was named a joint winner with along with Kailash Satyarthi, personifies the struggle for modernity, women’s equality and individual rights to religious freedom against the threat of Islamic extremism. But while Malala’s award is a triumph for her determination, it is far from clear that the cause she champions will meet as much success.

The reality is that Pakistan is facing a serious problem, with the mushrooming of Islamist appeal within Pakistani society reminding us that we risk seeing the Talibanization not simply of a small minority of ordinary citizens, but large swathes of the populace of the world’s second largest – and only nuclear-armed – Muslim country.

Pakistan abounds with violent sectarian and Islamist groups headquartered in semiautonomous tribal areas. Foreign jihadists, including Westerners like American David Headley, flock to areas such as North Waziristan. Yet although Islamabad devotes a full third of its armed forces to the northwest of the country, it is also pursuing policies that encourage a mainstream slide toward extremism.

State laws and practices relating to Islamic blasphemy, in particular, are increasingly suppressing moderate voices, while allowing extremists to dominate cultural discourse and learning. As a result, extremism is making ideological inroads into wider and wider segments of the population.

A shocking example came last month with the drive-by shooting of Muhammad Shakeel Auj, dean of Islamic Studies at the venerable Karachi University. Auj had earned a PhD after writing a comparison of eight Urdu translations of the Quran. But some found offense in his “liberal” religious views as he passionately denounced terrorism and suggested that Muslim women could pray wearing lipstick and could marry non-Muslims.

Over the past two years, Auj has been subject to a barrage of blasphemy accusations, fatwas, and death threats, including that he will be beheaded. Particularly troubling is that four of his own faculty members were allegedly behind some of the threats. They were arrested, but soon released on bail. As one obituary writer commented, Auj’s murder shows that now “even the most mainstream Sunni voices will not be tolerated.”

Junaid Hafeez, another university professor, may soon be sentenced to death by the state. Charged with insulting the Prophet Mohammed on Facebook, he is now on trial for the capital crime of blasphemy. Yet the charge is based entirely on oral testimony of students linked to the hardline Jamaat-i-Islami party.

Hafeez has reportedly found it difficult to find a lawyer willing to defend him, not least because those who manage to secure an acquittal for accused blasphemers run the risk of being seen as blasphemers themselves. And while the state doesn’t penalize such defense lawyers, it also does little to protect them or punish their extrajudicial killers either. For example, while after his first two lawyers quit following death threats, Hafeez was able to hire Rashid Rehman, a senior lawyer with Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission. But on May 7, Rehman was shot dead in his office. His killers remain at large.

Liberal Muslim educators, lawyers, and human rights activists aren’t the only victims of the country’s anti-blasphemy codes. Often targeted are the Ahmadis, an as many as 5 million strong, well-educated community that professes faith in Islam, but which is not deemed Muslim under Pakistan’s constitution. The sect’s tenets renounce violent jihad and embrace the separation of mosque and state, as well as religious pluralism. They now account for 40 percent of blasphemy prosecutions, which also disproportionately target Christians, Shia, and Hindus.

Such extremism has touched us personally. Our friends Shahbaz Bhatti, the former Minority Affairs Minister, and Salman Taseer, Punjab’s former governor, were both outspoken critics of the blasphemy conviction of Christian mother Asia Bibi, and both were gunned down in 2011. The Lahore High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence against Asia Bibi.

The blasphemy law was originally introduced to appease extremists, but has instead stimulated an appetite for more. As Bhatti noted: “This law is creating disharmony and intolerance in our society.” He is right – it legitimizes and enflames religious passions over speech, while providing extremists a platform within the very heart of Pakistani society.

American drones are now aiming at Pakistan’s northwest terrorist snake pit. But there is no military solution to the blasphemy law. And while it is only right that we celebrate Malala’s Nobel award, we also cannot forget the growing numbers of Pakistanis that take no pride in such an achievement.

Editor’s note: Farahnaz Ispahani is a former member of the Pakistani parliament and Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center 2013-2014. Her forthcoming book is ‘Waiting to Die: Pakistan’s religious minorities’. Nina Shea is a senior fellow, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and co- author of ‘Silenced; How apostasy and blasphemy codes are choking freedom worldwide’. The views expressed are their own.

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Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow,
at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.
She is the author of the recently published book "Purifying the Land of the Pure: The History of Pakistan's Religious Minorities. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Ms. Farahnaz Ispahani has been a leading voice for women and religious minorities in Pakistan for the past twenty five years, first as a journalist, then as a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, and most recently as a scholar based in the United States. An advocate of Pakistan’s return to democracy during the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, she served as a spokesperson and international media coordinator for the Pakistan People’s Party, working alongside the late Benazir Bhutto. During her tenure in parliament (2008–2012), she was a member of the Human Rights Committee and the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus. In 2013–2014, she served as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she completed a book on the persecution of religious minorities in Pakistan. In 2012, she was listed among Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, as well as Newsweek Pakistan’s Top 100 Women Who Matter. During her fellowship, Ms. Ispahani is exploring women’s political participation in the Muslim world, both in terms of their progress toward gender equality under democratic systems and the converse rise of women as agents of extremist propaganda within the world of the Islamic State.
FARAHNAZ ISPAHANI is Senior Fellow, South and South East Asia Action Team at Religious Freedom Institute also.

Farahnaz Ispahani

Farahnaz Ispahani is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, author of “Purifying The Land of the Pure; Pakistan’s Religious Minorities, Senior Fellow at Religious Freedom Institute. She is Foreign Policy Global Thinker. In 2015, she was a Reagan-Fascell Scholar at the National Endowment for Democracy, in Washington, DC. Ispahani was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2013-2014. A Pakistani politician, Ispahani served as a Member of Parliament and Media Advisor to the President of Pakistan from 2008-2012.